


Ift A 'III- / 




^ /*i^ 



, v * 










V, 







& ..J 






















*.>&*>> 






• •■■•■■ 




&. " o m o „<T 















<&i)e political Duties of tityrfettaiw. 



REPORT 



ADOPTED AT THE SPRING MEETING 



SOUTH MIDDLESEX CONFERENCE OF CHURCHES, 



APRIL 18, 184: 



BOSTON : 

PRINTED BY ANDREWS & PRENTISS, 
No. 11 Devonshire Street. 

1848. 









Extract from Minutes of Conference. 

<: The Report on the Political Duties of Christians was read and 
accepted. After an animated and protracted discussion it was adopted 
and ordered to be printed." 

SAMUEL HUNT, Scribe. 



Note. — The Appendix has been inserted on the responsibility of the 
Committee of Publication. Of course the Conference are not responsi- 
ble for it. 

Hffzr 



REPORT. 



At the last meeting of Conference, a Committee 
was appointed to take into consideration the following 
motion, adopted at that time : 

"In view of the political subserviency of Christians to party and mere 
political demagogues, as especially evinced in the history of the Mexican 
War: 

'•Moved, That this Conference appoint a Committee to report at next 
meetiog any measures, that seem to be advisable, to enable Christians to 
regain their appropriate influence as citizens." 

Two points are particularly brought to view in this 
action of Conference. 1. The declared fact, that 
Christians have proved themselves too subservient to 
the behests of mere party dictation, even to a guilty 
disregard of the dictates of Truth and Duty. 2. The 
inquiry, how that subserviency can be prevented, and 
they be made to assert their rights and occupy their 
appropriate position. Both points are of the greatest 
practical importance, and should receive at our hands 
the most careful and candid scrutiny. The distin- 
guishing characteristic of the American Citizen arc, 
his right of suffrage, and, of consequence, the respon- 
sibility for its proper use. If, for any cause whatever, 
for personal quiet, party prejudice, or political consid- 
erations, he fails to employ his power aright and as 
the principles of his religious profession demand, then 
the fact should be made to appear — the reason of that 
fact — while, if possible, the way should be pointed out 
by which he may be emancipated from his guilty and 



i 



degrading thraldom. In our present examination, we 
propose to touch upon points, as suggested by this 
threefold division. 

I. — As evidence of the fact, that Christians have 
been thus wickedly subservient to the mere behests of 
party discipline, we refer to what has become pain- 
fully and historically true, that, in all the essential 
elements of legislation, they have exerted little or no 
moral power upon the political action of our govern- 
ment or the respective parties to which they have 
belonged. We can, indeed, devote but a single para- 
graph or two to what would require a volume for a 
full examination. 

We assert, then, with the most entire and painful 
confidence, that no more practically infidel have been 
the governments of Europe, for the last fifty years, 
than has been our own. We may be called unpa- 
triotic for the assertion, but with the scroll of our 
history unrolled before us, we can come to no other 
conclusion. A simple allusion to some of the leading 
facts of our governmental policy is all we have space 
for. 

First and fundamentally wrong has been our legis- 
lation upon the subject of Slavery. Commencing 
with a lie in our right hand — that man could hold 
property in man — and incorporating the spirit of 
oppression with the very Constitution that proclaims 
its own design to be, " to promote the general welfare 
and secure the blessings of liberty," we have never 
returned to the path of integrity and simple honesty. 
As political expediency was then deemed paramount 
to the claims of Right and Humanity, so has it ever 
been considered since. As the Slave Power has urged 
its exorbitant demands for the strengthening and per- 



petuating of this terrible institution, the nation has done 
little more than accede and do its dreadful bidding. 
We have abrogated the right of trial by jury, in the 
case of the suspected runaway, be he black or white ; 
made the " Louisiana Purchase," at the cost of fifteen 
millions of dollars and without the sanction of the 
Constitution, that we might have territory from which 
Slave States might be carved at leisure ; by the " Mis- 
souri Compromise," we extended the same blighting 
curse over millions of fertile acres in the great Valley 
of the West ; expended forty millions of dollars in the 
" Florida War," to reclaim the trembling fugitive from 
oppression, and break up his retreat among the ever- 
glades and friendly Seminoles ; by the Annexation of 
Texas, in plain violation of treaty stipulations and the 
provisions of the Constitution, new territory has been 
added, equal in extent to two hundred such States as 
Massachusetts, " calculated and designed by the open 
declaration of its friends to uphold the interests of 
Slavery, extend its influence, and secure its perma- 
nent duration," * and leading to the present Mex- 
ican War, which has already cost its one hundred 
millions of dollars, and consigned to their graves at 
least thirty thousand of our fellow-men. JNor is the 
end yet. For the alternative is still before us, of its 
continuance, with all its cost of blood and treasure, or 
the reception of a Treaty that shall bring in territory, 
equal in extent to the original thirteen States of our 
nation, in which Slavery must be permitted, or a 
struggle ensue that, by its probable violence, will 
endanger the integrity of the Union. 

In pursuance of the same unworthy purpose, and 
prompted by the same spirit of evil, the nation stands 

* J. C. Calhoun. 



before the civilized world guilty of the inexpressibly 
mean and cruel crime of forcibly despoiling a weak 
and defenceless people of their lands, the imprison- 
ment of their religious teachers, the Christian mission- 
aries of our churches, and finally compelling them to 
remove from the homes and the graves of their fathers, 
to a distant wilderness, in order that their lands might 
be distributed among the Slaveholders of Georgia and 
Alabama. And, at this present moment, while all the 
leading governments of Christendom have united in a 
combination for the suppression of the Slave Trade, 
the United States of America stands alone, in the 
blackness of her infamy, refusing to enter into that 
combination. Indeed, to use the strong language of 
John Quincy Adams: The preservation, propagation 
and perpetuation of Slavery [has been] the vital and 
animating spirit of the national government. Of the 
fifty-nine years of our government, Slaveholders have 
occupied the Presidential chair forty-nine years, while 
Non- Slaveholders have been honored with that high 
office, by this liberty-loving people, but twelve years 
and one month. 

In relation to the Sabbath the same disregard of 
right and the principles of Christian morality are 
to be seen. The mail has always been transported 
on the Sabbath by United States' authority, while 
Cabinet councils and Legislative sittings, during the 
hours of holy time, have been, by no means, of infre- 
quent occurrence. 

In a word, in all the substantial features of the 
legislation of our government for the last half cen- 
tury, there could hardly have been less recognition 
of God and the claims of His religion. We are 
aware of the broadness of this assertion. Nor should 



we have ventured upon its utterance had we not 
been prepared to challenge its successful contradic- 
tion. The proposition is true, and cannot be gain- 
said. 

II. — The question now arises: Why is it thus ? 
Why do evangelical Christians exert so little influence 
upon the politics of the nation? Why, in the estimate 
of politicians, of the policy of measures or the availibil- 
ity of men, do they so seldom, if ever, take into ac- 
count the conscience of the nation, as an element of 
influence, to be both feared and consulted ? 

Negatively we may say, that it is not from the 
want of power. Had they been disposed, they might 
have exerted a paramount influence upon the govern- 
mental policy of the nation. Upon the subject of 
Slavery the Rev. Albert Barnes has recorded this lan- 
guage as an expression of his opinions: " There is 
no power out of the church that could sustain Slavery 
an hour, if it were not sustained in it. Not a blow 
need be struck. Not an unkind word need be utter- 
ed. No man's motive need be impugned ; no man's 
proper rights invaded. All that is needful is, for each 
Christian man and for every Christian church, to 
stand up in the sacred majesty of such a solemn testi- 
mony ; to free themselves from all connection with 
the evil, and utter a calm and deliberate voice to the 
world, and the work will be done." This opin- 
ion has been called in question and its correctness 
doubted. It must be done however by those, it seems 
to us, who have never duly estimated the sources of 
power possessed by professing Christians of the na- 
tion. They have the strength of numbers. There 
are estimated to be in the evangelical churches of our 
country 3,000,000 members. Of these, there are 



500,000 who are voters. If now two or three hun- 
dred thousand Slaveholders have heen able, against 
right and humanity, to control the action of our gov- 
ernment, should not twice that number of professing 
Christians, when acting for them, make this influence 
felt ? It is plain that they must. No political party can 
spare 500,000 votes, or half that number, and hope 
to succeed. Had the Christians of the nation but 
used the power they possessed, as the Slaveholders 
have used theirs, they could, to any desirable extent, 
have controlled "the action of the government. Be- 
sides, the sources of moral influence and power are 
great. The evangelical sects have nearly all the col- 
leges and other seminaries of learning, of the land, 
under their control ; nearly every chair, of instruc- 
tion and authority, being filled by those professing 
godliness. They have compiled nearly all the school 
books and have a far more than equal share in the 
management of our common schools. Then, they 
have all the power of religion, so far as it acts purely 
and legitimately, on their side. They have 30,000 
ministers, who have access to the ear and conscience 
of the nation a hundred times a year. And there is a 
Religious Press, with its weekly, monthly and quarter- 
ly issues, scattered broad-cast over the land, entering 
our Christian families, conducted with much ability 
and thus capable of exerting a tremendous influence 
in favor of those positions which are deemed worthy 
of its advocacy. Standing at such avenues of in- 
fluence, who can gainsay our position that the Chris- 
tians of our land have had the power to exert a 
paramount influence on the politics of the nation ? 

In speaking however more positively, we would 
note, as one of the causes of this unhappy result, an 



erroneous conception of the nature and extent of our 
social responsibility. The individual who first spoke 
of "organic sins," gave, it' not utterance to a truth, 
at least " a local habitation and a name " to a deep 
and widely diffused sentiment in the community. The 
undoubted truth, that no one can escape, with impu- 
nity, as an individual, from the sins, with their conse- 
quences, which he commits as a citizen, is far from 
being admitted by the American people. Of course 
few have ever felt the responsibility that inheres to 
political relations and conduct ; while the great mass 
have seemed to adopt the principle, that there is a 
kind of moral alchemy in a political organization which 
can abstract from acts, in themselves wrong, their 
moral turpitude and make them blameless in doing, 
as a government or party, what, as individuals, they 
would have looked upon with the utmost horror. 
Thus, many a good man has supported an ad- 
ministration that drove hundreds and thousands of 
families from the homes of their fathers to a far 
distant and trackless wilderness, who would have 
revolted at the very thought of driving a poor and 
feeble man from his patrimonial homestead, merely 
because he had the power. And many have adher- 
ed to their party organizations for political advanta- 
ges, although the price of such adherence was well 
understood to be a silent consent to all the abom- 
inations and oppression of Slavery and the Domestic 
Slave Trade, who would have cut off their right 
hand before they would have been individually guilty 
of the excessive meanness and cruelty of breaking up 
a weak and defenceless family, and selling the lather 
and husband from the wife and mother, an*l both from 
the children of their humble but devoted affection. 
2 



10 



But, if the action is wrong in the one case why not in 
the other ? And are these men free from responsibil- 
ity and guilt because they have fallen in with the cur- 
rent notions of the times ? That there is wrong in 
despoiling the poor Cherokee of his lands, and the 
African of his freedom and domestic comforts, all will 
admit. At whose door lies the responsibility ? The 
State ? The Party ? What is the State or the Party 
but the aggregation of individuals? And what are 
national acts or party acts but the aggregated acts of 
the individuals that compose the nation or make up 
the party ? Wrong is wrong, whether committed by 
an individual, party or nation. Shall we not so de- 
cide? Or is the nation going back to the infidel 
philosophy of Hobbes or Mandeville, to contend that 
virtue and right are but subjects of legislative enact- 
ment, and that moral obligation follows only the 
behests of courts and the decrees of governments? 
Men may disagree as to the nature of virtue, so far as 
to differ on the questions ; " whether an action is right 
because God commands it or God commands it be- 
cause it is right;" or, "whether a thing is right be- 
cause it will promote the greatest good or because it 
agrees with the fitness of things ; " and yet, is there 
not a general agreement among the thinking men of 
this age, that morality is paramount to all civil lair ? 
Do not all admit that " undiscovered theft " is wrong, 
although it might have been legalized by Spartan laws ; 
and that the exposure of the aged and infirm is a sin 
against God, although sanctioned by the almost uni- 
versal practice and sentiment of India? How then 
can Christian men — who have professedly taken 
God's law as their rule of action, that law whose ruling 
element is love, and which requires of us, that, whether 



11 



we eat or drink or whatever we do to do it all to the 
glory of God — persuade themselves that they arc 
conforming to the spirit of their profession, when, 
by their votes and party support, they place the 
sword of power in the hands of men guilty of acts 
thus repugnant to the voice of humanity or scripture. 
Georgia could never have pursued her high-handed 
measures against the Cherokces, had not the then 
existing national administration supported her in it, 
and connived at the infamous outrage. Nor could 
that administration ever had the power, had it not 
received the votes of men who had professed the re- 
ligion of universal love. The terrible scenes of the 
Domestic Slave Trade, so full of anguish and wrong, 
could never be enacted, only as the inhuman monsters 
who fatten on the spoils of this infernal traffic, have 
the authority of the General Government, and are 
assured that the " bayonets of the North " are ready 
at their bidding, to quell the first show of resistance 
on the part of their deeply injured victims. We 
know it may be said that all this is but in accordance 
with the solemn guaranties of the Constitution. 

Nor will we urge, in answer, the assertion of the 
civil law, that no man can be bound by a wicked con- 
tract, or of the holy law of Revelation, that we ought 
to obey God rather than man. We will admit that it 
is all constitutional. What then ? The Constitution 
is not like the laws of the Medes and Persians. It 
provides for its own amendment; and yet, no such 
amendment has ever been proposed. No administra- 
tion has ever come into power which has made such a 
proposition a part of its political creed. The whole 
country has been convulsed, from centre to circumfer- 
ence, upon questions of Tariff or Free Trade, Bank 



12 



or Sub-Treasury ; and yet the question has never been 
entertained, by the leading parties of the land, of in- 
troducing into their respective creeds the principle of 
opposition to Slavery, in relation to its farther exten- 
sion, much less to its ultimate extinction. Recently, 
cases of " resolved " resistance have appeared here 
and there, in the free States, but, by the leading influ- 
ences, they have been regarded as mere factious 
attempts to disturb the internal harmony of the re- 
spective parties in which they have appeared. And 
in truth they do conflict with what has been the settled 
policy of both, to keep quiet on the subject of Slavery ; 
and, for the sake of retaining their Southern ivings, by 
common consent, to yield to any demand, however exor- 
bitant, however humiliating, and however wicked. And 
yet the half a million of professedly Christian voters 
have been distributed between these parties, and they 
have not only stood by, consenting to this recklessness 
of principle, but, by their countenance and votes, have 
added that strength, without which neither party could 
have maintained its position a year. Could they have 
so acted, had they regarded themselves as really re- 
sponsible for their political conduct as for their per- 
sonal ? Did they assent to the assertion of President 
Wayland, that " a Christian must ask about a political 
as well as about any other act, the question, Is it right 
or wrong ? And by the answer to that question must 
he be guided ; that, to prefer our own interests, or the 
interests of party, to that of our country, is treason 
against that country, and sin against God ; " could 
they have acted so completely without reference to 
the moral character of the partizan conduct they were 
instrumental in sustaining. We are fully aware of the 
standing reply to all this ; that by so doing men are 



13 



choosing the least of two evils — by raising the ob- 
noxious candidate or party to power they are pursuing 
the only effectual method of preventing a candidate or 
party still more exceptionable. Granted : but does it 
follow that they are right in making this choice ? 
Have those who make this plea ever borne it in mind, 
that if good here, it would justify a support for any set 
of men and measures, however vile and disastrous, 
providing another set still more vile and dangerous 
could be presented for their suffrages ? If this princi- 
ple be correct, then the Hindoo child is justified for 
leaving his sick and infirm parent to perish, inasmuch 
as he has outlived his comfort and usefulness, and if 
will be the least of two evils to die now, than to live 
in pain and discomfort for a score of years longer. 
The respectable vender of ardent spirits is not so far 
from the truth, when he urges as a reason for his con- 
tinuance in the traffic, that it is better for him to do it, 
under proper restrictions, than for one less respectable 
and scrupulous to occupy his place. But is it so ? 
Who admits the soundness of such reasoning ? Have 
we no fixed principles in morals ? Has virtue nothing 
distinct and permanent about it ? Is utility — and that 
of the loosest and most intangible kind, as every man 
happens to think on his own individual responsibility — 
to be the standard of right action ? The generation 
that has banished Paley from its seminaries of learn- 
ing, on account of his loose notions of virtue, would 
do well to review its reasoning before it thus limits its 
social responsibility. 

We are not unaware of the practical difficulties that 
environ this subject. We know that it may not always 
be easy to decide when " the least of two evils " be- 
comes too great to be chosen. And yet we feel con- 



14 



fident that the Conference needs no argument to admit 
that it does, when there is an element of wrong implied 
or incorporated in that evil, the least though it may be. 
It is never permitted to do evil, that good may come. 
Indeed, it is the glory of our religion, that it affords us 
certain fixed principles, adherence to which is not only 
always right, but always safe — principles by which, 
when fairly apprehended, we may confidently abide, 
and leave results with God. It may require patience, 
candor, wisdom, grace, always to understand and ap- 
ply those principles ; and yet, when fairly understood, 
there never need be doubt about their application. 
While the world, like the ancient mariner, creeps 
timidly along the* shore of a short-sighted policy, never 
daring to lose sight of the headlands of human expedi- 
ency, it is the Christian's proud prerogative to launch 
boldly out upon the ocean of life's experience, calm in 
his serene confidence, that so long as he keeps his eye 
upon the Compass and Chart of God's Eternal Truth, 
his interests and the interests of the cause he loves are 
safe. 

Another cause of the little moral power of the 
church is found in the very prevalent abuse of the 
spiritual character of true piety. Christians have gen- 
erally regarded their political relations and rights as 
beyond the range of their religious duties. They 
have acquiesced in the confident assertion of the 
world that Religion is toe pure and sacred for the 
political arena. As a general rule, they have stood 
aloof from the primary arrangements of their respect- 
ive parties, absented themselves from the caucus and 
convention, and submitted, in the votes they cast, to 
the dictation of self-constituted leaders who make 
politics a trade, and who look upon the spoils of 



15 



office as the reward of their labor. Ministers have 
generally acquiesced in the sentiment of the commu- 
nity, that party politics, however much of moral prin- 
ciple may be involved in them, should never be 
alluded to in the pulpit. The same inexorable cen- 
sorship has demanded a similar acquiescence from 
the Religious Press, and pronounced all such topics 
as tabood, although they may be questions on which 
depend the dearest interests of Humanity or Religion. 
The Slave has rent the heavens with his cries of 
agony, as he pointed to the bloody scourge and fetter 
of his bondage — his family circle invaded by the lust 
of one and broken up by the avarice of another — to 
his mind enveloped in pagan darkness ; and, in tones 
of earnest expostulation, implored us to remember 
him in his bonds, as if bound with him, and take 
from his cruel master the power which the laws, 
that we make and can unmake, have placed in his 
hands to do him this great wrong. The poor Indian, 
torn from the home of his fathers, has asked us if 
there was no way in which he could be protected from 
the cold-hearted rapacity of his spoiler. We heard 
these appeals — they have gone to the heart — we 
have made them the subjects of special prayer — but 
the question of relief has been unfortunately entan- 
gled in the meshes of party politics, and with them it 
has been deemed inexpedient to interfere. With the 
power in their hands to stay the terrible work of op- 
pression and destruction, Christians — with noble ex- 
ceptions it is true — have not used that power for 
such a purpose. Humanity and Christian benevolence 
have both plead in the most melting tones for their 
deliverance, but the church has feared to enter the 
lists of party warfare, lest her sacred garments should 



16 



be soiled by the contact, and Religion should be dis- 
honored by the unseemly encounter. Sincerely en- 
gaged in the work of promoting the spiritual welfare 
of the soul, she has felt that this would be departing 
from her legitimate sphere. Her ministry and relig- 
ious press have, as a general thing, remained silent — 
her members have been absorbed in the political par- 
ties, who, for political considerations, have consented 
to these wrongs and outrages ; so that while less than 
200,000 voting Slaveholders have governed the coun- 
try by shrewdly using their political power for wrong 
and oppression, she, with three times that number of 
voting members, has been little more than a dead 
letter in the government, merely because she has 
failed to use the power she possessed. 

In all this we believe her to have been radically mis- 
taken. It is a sad abuse of her spiritual character to 
deem it inconsistent to enter the lists of conflict with 
the most embittered of her foes and the foes of human- 
ity. At least so do we interpret the Word of God : and 
such a conclusion do we reach, as we contemplate the 
examples of prophet and apostle; and of the Great 
Master himself. True, our religion is a Religion of 
Faith; and, being primarily spiritual, it can exhibit 
a vigorous and symmetrical development, only as the 
heart is kept right with God. And yet we cannot 
overlook the equally inspired truth that faith, without 
works, is dead ; that Religion requires of its believers 
to do justly, and love mercy, as well as to walk hum- 
bly with their God ; to visit the widows" and father- 
less in their afflictions, as well as to keep themselves 
unspotted from the world. We remember, too, that 
it was in no other way that God's covenant people 
could fast acceptably, than as they loosed the bands 



17 



of wickedness, undid the heavy burdens, let the op- 
pressed go free, broke every yoke, dealt bread to the 
hungry, brought home the outcast, and covered the 
naked. Nor can we forget the example of Christ, 
who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became 
poor, that we through his poverty might be rich 
— who w r ent about doing good, and who even so 
shaped his miracles, wrought to attest the divinity of 
his character and mission, as to relieve the distresses 
of some child of sorrow and pour the balm of consola- 
tion into some wounded heart. And the great apos- 
tle, although his whole soul was burning with an 
unquenchable ardor for the spiritual healing and sal- 
vation of his fellow sinners, was ever active in minis- 
tering to the poor saints who lacked the creature 
comforts of their more favored brethren. With such 
examples from such sources, we cannot resist the con- 
viction, that, while the primary design of the gospel is 
to cultivate the heart and save the soul, a secondary 
and by no means unimportant object is to promote 
the present well-being of the world. Aye, more ; we 
believe that God has so adapted the economy of grace 
to the circumstances in which we are placed, that the 
surest and only legitimate method of doing good to 
our own hearts is, as we have opportunity, to do good 
unto all men ; that no devotions, however fervent or 
protracted — no reading of the Bible or religious 
books — no meditation upon sacred topics — can 
make amends for a neglect of ministering to the 
necessities of the suffering, the destitute and benight- 
ed around us. 

If this is so, then the position is incontrovertible, 
that it is a Christian duty to employ whatever of 
ability we possess, pecuniary, social, or political, for 
3 



18 



those who stand in need of our offices of kindness, 
and who can be relieved by us. If we have wealth, 
and a neighbor is destitute, we are bound to sup- 
ply his wants. If he is sick, and we are near at 
hand, we are bound to repair to his relief, and minis- 
ter to his comfort. Is he falsely accused, and we are 
in possession of evidence that will prove his inno- 
cence, does any one doubt that it would be a Christ- 
ian duty to appear before the Court and give in that 
testimony ? And should we refuse, from a love of 
quiet, interest, or a pretended desire to cultivate 
spirituality of heart, would the truly wise excuse us ? 
If then we have political power which will save a fel- 
low man from perpetual bondage and pagan darkness, 
how can we be guiltless if we do not use it for that 
purpose ? At least, can we be right in permitting the 
wicked and unprincipled partisan leader to decide for 
us how we shall use the power thus placed in our 
hands? Most Christians regard it both a duty and 
a privilege to vote. But political discussions, and the 
action of the caucus and the convention, generally 
decide the character of the legislation which will be 
adopted by the successful party. Why then should 
not Christians engage in those discussions, and attend 
those conventions ? If it be said that the associations 
and companionships of the political arena breathe too 
much of intrigue and corruption for the Christian to 
enter them without being tainted, we reply, 1st., So 
much more necessary is it that Christians should be 
there to purify that atmosphere. 2d., There is no 
more intrigue and corruption in the caucus than at 
the polls — no more in the political world than in the 
social and commercial world in which Christians 
move and transact their daily business. If we would 



19 



not, in these secular relations, keep company with the 
fornicators, covetous, extortioners and idolaters of 
this world, then, as the apostle said to the Corinthian 
Christians, we must needs go out of the world. The 
Master himself ate with publicans and sinners, with a 
far less imperative necessity for so doing, as it now 
appears to us, than there exists for Christians min- 
gling in the political world. Is there no danger of our 
forgetting the lesson he thus taught* by his own divine 
example ? Is it said again, that Christ and his apos- 
tles did not interfere with the political concerns of the 
nation under whose government they lived ? This 
may be, for the very good reason that they were in 
no wise responsible for the character of the govern- 
ment, and in no circumstances to have their wishes 
regarded, had they made them known. They were 
viewed either with contempt or jealousy, as the filth 
and offscouring of all things, or as opposed to the then 
dominant religion of the realm. What could they do 
to lighten the load of oppression that weighed thus 
heavily on the poor slaves of their times ? How much 
would Nero have heeded the most eloquent and earn- 
est remonstrances of Paul ? They would probably 
have hastened the martyrdom of his noble prisoner in 
bonds. Here the circumstances are materially chang- 
ed. Every American citizen is a king ; and every 

VOTER IS A RULER, WHO IS REQUIRED TO BE JUST, 

ruling in the fear of God. Indeed so far as we 
can read the rule of duty, the obligation is resting on 
every Christian voter as much to consult the dictates 
of justice and mercy in casting his vote, as on the 
kings and princes of monarchical governments to use 
their power, under the influence of similar principles. 
And no more responsible was Nero, for his cruelties, 



20 



than are American voters for the cruelties committed 
by the government of this nation, at least, so far as 
they have clothed that government with the necessary 
power, by the votes they have given or have not with- 
held. With this view of the subject before us we fail 
to see the force of the argument, which some draw 
from the non-interference of Christ and his apostles 
with the blood-stained tyranny of Rome, why Ameri- 
can citizens, undef a Republic, should not interfere 
with the affairs of the government they help to sup- 
port, and of which they form a constituent part. 

Is not our position then sustained ? Shall we not 
deem that an abuse of the spiritual character of true 
piety, when Christians stand aloof from an active par- 
ticipation in the political affairs of the nation, because 
of any alleged incompatibility between it and the 
sacredness of their holy calling ? Grant, indeed, as it 
is sometimes asserted, that those Christians who have 
entered actively into the strife and struggle of political 
life have suffered in their religious experience, and 
become less spiritual and consistent. Have there not 
been obvious reasons for such a result ? They have 
done it not so much to serve their Master as to pro- 
mote their own selfish interests, — not so much to 
glorify God as themselves, — not so much to contend 
with the enemies of truth and righteousness as with 
partizan opponents in the ignoble conflicts of personal 
ambition. They have sought distinction not so much 
by attempting to purify the stream of political life and 
direct it into the channels of Truth and Integrity as 
by falling in with the current already formed, and re- 
ceiving its force and direction from worldly men, 
acting from the maxims of a purely worldly policy. 
Is it strange that such men, acting from such motives, 



21 



should receive damage to their souls? But is there 
any ground for such apprehension in the case of 
those who enter the political arena from merely re- 
ligious motives ? — who go to the convention as they 
would go to the prayer-meeting, — to the polls as to 
the monthly concert, not to serve themselves, but their 
fellow-men — not to gain worldly honor for man, but 
to get glory to God ? Suppose they do come in con- 
tact with wicked men, — so did Jesus Christ through 
his whole mission on earth. Suppose they are com- 
pelled to witness intrigue and meet with violence, — 
so did Paul and Silas, all the early Christians, and the 
whole company of martyrs, in all ages of the Church. 
Did their spirituality suffer from such contact or vio- 
lence ? It is not the place the Christian occupies, but 
his spirit and purpose in being there, that does him either 
good or harm. The ascetic of the middle ages in his 
cell, " alone with God and angels," became a fanatic, 
while the Reformers of Germany, the Covenanters of 
Scotland, and the Puritans of England, in stern and 
sanguinary conflict with the enemies of Truth, gained 
a vigor and maturity of religious character which 
Christians now seldom attain. And is it a fanciful or 
groundless assumption of ours when we say, that if 
Christians would make their politics a help instead of 
an injury to their piety, they must infuse more of the 
latter into the former ; and not be afraid to carry their 
religion into the caucus of their party and to the pol \ 
of the nation ? 

Naturally resulting from the abovementioned causes 
or elements of influence is another, and the last 
we shall notice. We refer to the failure of Christians 
to make their influence felt in their respective parties. 
In a government like ours, in which majorities must 



22 



rule, it is obvious that there must be parties. They 
must not only be expected and endured, but depended 
upon. While the same reasons that obtain for their 
existence at all, render it necessary that there should 
be but tiro ; at least, as a general rule. And such, 
with a few unimportant exceptions, has been the his- 
tory of parties in this country ; so that to the one or 
the other of the two great leading parties of the nation 
have the Christians of our churches belonged ; and 
had they but exerted their legitimate influence there, 
they would have brought an element of incalculable 
value to their respective organizations. 

Now, it is in the successful party that are originated 
and perfected those measures which decide the cha- 
racter of the legislation of the government. Although 
parties are unknown to the Constitution, such a result 
is inevitable. The long debates, that consume the 
time and use up the energies of Congress, confessedly 
exert very little influence there, and are regarded as 
of little value, only as they act indirectly on the people 
themselves. They change no votes, they promote no 
good cause, nor can they avert any " foredoomed con- 
clusion " that may have been adopted as an article of 
the party creed. One day's debate in the Baltimore 
Convention of 1844, exerted more influence and fixed 
more irreversibly the legislation and history of our 
government for the last three years, than all the de- 
bates in Congress upon the Annexation of Texas and 
Mexican War from that day to this. The moment it 
was resolved to make the former a party question, the 
thing was settled, so far as the party was concerned, 
or the government, if that party should prove success- 
ful. We refer to it now, as a historical fact, and not 
for the purpose of expressing an opinion. It illus- 



23 



trates, however, very forcibly, the principle to which 
we would call attention. If such arc the facts in the 
case, then, it becomes an inevitable deduction, that if 
the good men of the nation would exert ;i healthful 
influence upon the policy of the government, they 
must do it mainly in the respective parties to which 
they belong. 

There are two ways in which we may make our 
influence felt here. 1. By attending the caucus and 
convention, and there, by vote and argument, con- 
tending for those men and measures which the inter- 
ests of truth and virtue require. 2. By distinctly 
promulgating those principles which we deem of essential 
importance, and which must be regarded by those parties 
who would count on our support. As these are vital 
points, they may require a moment's farther considera- 
tion. In relation, therefore, to the caucus and con- 
vention, it is most evident, if what has been said be 
true, that here is the place to exert most successfully 
and efficiently the right kind of influence in favor of 
the right kind of measures. Here measures are in 
their forming state, and, of course, are dependent 
upon the kind of influence exerted for the exact shape 
they shall assume. Here the vote and voice of a good 
man must, other things being equal, be as efficient as 
those of the bad man. A change of a very few votes 
in the Baltimore Convention would have changed the 
entire character of their action — presented different 
men and measures to the support of the party — at 
least warded oil' the annexation of Texas, and saved 
the country from the cost and guilt of the Mexican 
War. Ought not then good men to aim to be where 
one vote would exert more influence than ten thousand 
votes at the polls ? Nor should we, in our estimate, 



24 



forget the power of the committee room. Eacli of the 
great parties have their standing committees, for the 
Nation, State, County, and Town. To these com- 
mittees are entrusted the responsible task of taking a 
survey of the ground and marking out the work for 
the party to do and sanction by their votes, in the 
ballot-box. Of course, their opinions and plans are of 
great weight with the party. If good men are there, 
and will exert their power in the right direction, their 
efforts will not be without their influence in behalf of 
truth and right. 

But all efforts may fail of securing the right kind of 
men and measures for the adoption and nomination of 
the party. Good men have one resource left. They 
can withhold their votes, and cast them for other and 
opposing candidates. Votes are the sinews of party 
warfare, the only material of ultimate party strength. 
Politicians are always careful to pursue that course 
which will endanger the fewest votes. It is an ele- 
ment of strength in a party for a body or class of men 
to declare certain principles, on the adoption of which 
alone their votes can be counted on. The South has 
always understood this principle, and, by adhering to 
it, in the language of Mr. Adams, " a knot of Slave- 
holders give law and prescribe the policy of the 
country." Had the friends of Religion, the Sabbath, 
Temperance, and Freedom, been as decided, their 
wishes would have been more implicitly consulted, in- 
asmuch as they have had right and conscience on 
their side, and could have commanded twice the num- 
ber of votes. But they have never done it; and, of 
course, as their opinions or wishes did not control 
their votes, they have been disregarded. Here then 
we say we find the prevailing cause for the little in- 



25 



iluencc which Christians have exerted on the policy of 
the government. They have failed to use their power 
in the parties to which they have belonged. They 
have not only left the primary arrangements of the 
party to the violent and unprincipled* managers, who 
have no other aim than party ascendency and personal 
aggrandizement, and no rule of action but a mere 
selfish expediency ; but they have failed to indicate 
any principles or line of policy which must be regard- 
ed, if their party support would be secured. And so 
we have been compelled to witness the humiliating 
spectacle, at least once a year, of the good men of 
New England — the members, officers, and ministers 
of Christian churches — marching up to the polls to 
" support the regular nominations," although made by 
irresponsible leaders, who neither fear God nor regard 
man, and who have as little respect for the Bible as 
for the Koran. 

III. — But what then shall be done ? We have point- 
ed out the evils over which we have so much reason 
to mourn ; how shall they be removed ? We have de- 
scribed the malady ; who shall prescribe the remedy ? 
[[' what has been said be admitted, it would seem that 
the train of remark, in which we have indulged, has 
at least indirectly supplied the appropriate answer to 
the inquiry. Have Christians been as subservient, as 
we have intimated, to the mere dictates of unprin- 
cipled demagogues and partizan leaders? lias the 
policy of our government been as infidel as we have 
asserted ? These facts, well comprehended, it would 
seem, would break the chain which politicians have 
thrown around the good men of the land, and eman- 
cipate them from their degrading thraldom, lias 
there been, as we have stated, an erroneous concep- 
4 



26 



tion of the nature and extent of our social responsibil- 
ity? Then most surely is it an object, that every 
good man should have at heart — especially those 
whose duty and prerogative it is to teach the people 
knowledge, either through the Press or from the 
sacred Desk — to have this matter set in a clear and 
legitimate attitude before the Christian mind of the 
nation ; nor should good men any longer be left to 
hide themselves behind any rampart of " organic ,? 
wrong, as a shield from the responsibility of doing 
as members of a party or nation what they would not 
for any consideration do as individuals. And then 
again, is it true, as we have stated, that much of the 
evil over which we mourn has resulted from an abuse 
of the spiritual character of true piety ? Then how 
manifest is it, that that abuse should continue no 
longer, and evangelical Christianity should be rid of 
the unfounded imputation of inculcating a " faith 
without w T orks " — of seeking to secure spirituality of 
heart without a corresponding morality of life — of 
tithing the anise, mint and cummin of a speculative- 
theology and at the same time neglecting the weight- 
ier matters of the law, judgment and mercy. It was 
Christianity, boasting of its pure doctrine and saving 
faith and yet guilty of the grossest injustice and 
wrong, that gave Voltaire and his school of French 
Infidelity their most effective weapons against the 
truth. Christians of this day should take warning and 
learn wisdom from that drama of darkness and blood. 
And we are not sure that this does not indicate the 
peculiar work of our day — to disabuse the Christian 
mind of a prevalent mistake, and show to all that the 
religion we preach is literally what it was originally 
announced to be, "on earth peace and good will to 



27 



men " — that the spiritual and the moral are so close- 
ly united that the former cannot be successfully culti- 
vated without a faithful exhibition of the latter. And 
yet once more ; is it because Christians have failed of 
making their influence felt, in their parties, that we 
have witnessed the impotence of the church in rela- 
tion to the politics of the country r Then is no con- 
clusion more obvious than that Christians should not 
longer prove recreant to the trust imposed upon them 
as citizens of the Republic through the party organiza- 
tions to which they belong. In a word, the thing which 
the exigencies of the case seem to demand is to en- 
lighten the minds, quicken the consciences and thus 
rectify the conduct of the Christians of the land in re- 
lation to their political duties. Or to express the same 
idea more summarily, and in a proposition still more 
elementary, the great work before us is to rectify 
public opinion upon the subject of Christian duty in 
politics. No great "advance can be made until this 
is done ; until the common people shall hear gladly 
the words of truth upon the subject of their political 
duties and dangers. Help cannot come from those, 
whom, by a misnomer, we call " Leaders." They 
have no faith in the wisdom and integrity of the 
people — whatever they may say to the contrary — 
and will never forsake the beaten track to political 
preferment for the sake of any new issues, at least of 
a moral character, — issues that shall depend for their 
success upon any change of public sentiment they 
may hope to secure. They are quick to detect the 
sentiment, whenever it may be secured by other influ- 
ences, and they have a wonderful facility in accomo- 
dating themselves to it. They seldom create public 
sentiment ; they do but use and represent it. They 



28 



more nearly resemble the hangers-on of the camp, who 
are in at the spoils, after the battle is fought, than 
those who have led their hosts on to victory. Help 
must come from the people themselves, and our great 
work is to be done then. They must be made to 
apprehend those great principles of practical religion 
and social responsibility, to which we have referred, 
in their specific application to their rights and duties 
as citizens of a free Republic. 

The Pulpit must reassert its independence, and 
boldly declare those truths that the practical relations 
of the people demand. No longer should it bow to 
the senseless and wicked clamor of the unprincipled 
demagogue, and timidly submit to the impudent de- 
mand, that, because a question has become involved 
with the politics of the day, it should therefore be ex- 
cluded from the sacred desk. Nor should its discus- 
sion be confined to vague generalities and admitted 
truisms, assent to which demands' no correspondence 
of action, but be so expressed — guided by heavenly 
wisdom — that the hearer shall go from the house of 
God to the caucus or the polls, well instructed in all 
that is essential to right action there. We would have 
" politics preached " so far, and no farther, than is 
necessary for a purpose like this. 

Then again the Religious Press has become a most 
important engine of moral influence in Christendom. 
Entering our families as it docs upon its quarterly, 
monthly, and weekly visits, it acts in the two-fold 
capacity of mentor to instruct by its precepts, and 
companion to persuade by its friendly intimacy. To 
be prepared for this responsible position, it should be 
free and independent. Its attachment to truth and 
the best interests of man should be far more apparent 



29 



than its anxiety to save its southern subscribers or 
conciliate the favor of metropolitan cliques. What is 
true and right? should be their inquiry, more than — 
What is expedient? There is a mass of facts upon 
the subject of Slavery and the relation of the North to 
it — vipon the subject of the political management of 
our government — that should be brought to light and 
spread before the readers of our religious journals. 
And such an expose should be entered upon without 
fear or favor. But to have such a Press, it must be 
sustained. Editors and publishers feel constrained to 
provide such a paper as shall be supported. They 
must bring such wares to market as will sell. If the 
minions of oppression and the parasites of power are 
quick to detect and prompt to visit, with remonstrance 
and withdrawal of patronage, anything that conflicts 
with their feelings and interests, while the friends of 
freedom and principle are slow to recognize any 
recreancy to what they deem true and right, then the 
favor of the former will be conciliated and the wishes 
of the latter will be disregarded, and severer strokes 
will be applied to the reformer than to those who 
need to be reformed. AVhen Reform shall be found 
as unyielding as Conservatism, and the friends of 
righteousness shall be as jealous of its honor and 
claims as the supporters of the abuses of the day are 
of them, then it will no longer be true, that all the 
concessions must be made to the latter and the " re- 
jected articles " chiefly returned to the former. The 
remedy is with the people. Let them make the de- 
mand and bestow their patronage on those most de- 
serving, and we shall have the religious press of the 
nation in their true position, and leading in the van 
of all true reform and practical godliness. 



30 



And still again, there must be concert of action. 
There are scattered elements of feeling to be found in 
all the Northern States, upon the subject we have 
now been considering, that is now hidden for the want 
of mode or opportunity of development. There are 
many who are chagrined and pained at the ignoble 
attitude in which the American church presents itself, 
in its relation to the civil government, sighing over 
the desolations that meet their eye on every side, and 
looking with longing eyes for deliverance. But they 
know not where to go or what to do. Equally dis- 
gusted with the rabid ultraism on the one hand, that 
is eager to pull down and which is impotent to build 
up ; and on the other that purblind conservatism, in 
Church and State, that clings with dogged obstinacy 
to things as they are, with all their abuses and ele- 
ments of wrong, they are looking for a more excel- 
lent way in which they can make effective their impa- 
tience of wrong and their earnest desire of right. For 
such there should be conference of opinion and concert 
of action. The subject of our political relations and 
duties should therefore find a theatre of full and fair 
discussion in our religious bodies — in our Associations 
and Conferences — our Presbyteries, Synods, and As- 
semblies. On the same ground of every other relig- 
ious duty, it should be entertained in good faith, and 
receive that candid examination its merits and im- 
portance demand. And, what is more important still, 
there should be Conventions — religious conventions — 
for the specific purpose of entertaining and deciding 
upon the civil duties of Christian Citizens. Indeed, 
in our apprehension, Christians will never take their 
true position, until as men — not as sects, not as a 
Christian party in politics, but as men — they meet 



31 



together to discuss, as a matter of weighty importance, 
their relation and their duty to the State. 

This, then, is the remedy we propose. Let the 
Pulpit be true to its trust. Let the Religious Press — 
the quarterly, monthly, and weekly journals — make 
the subject of the Christian's civil duties, in all their 
various bearings and relations, a prominent topic of 
candid and able discussion. Let Christians, in their 
collective capacity, entertain, discuss, and adjudicate 
the same subjects with a similar spirit and for a similar 
purpose. 

Especially at this moment arc there special reasons 
why Christians should assume their true position and 
make their influence felt in the politics of the nation. 
It is a general admission, that we have reached an 
important era in the history of our country. The 
strange events of the past few years — the Annexation 
of Texas — the Mexican War — and the recent Treaty 
by which so large a portion of territory is to be added 
to our nation — territory that is to extend the area of 
freedom or bondage — all these events are giving an 
entirely new phase to the aspect of our political affairs. 
This, I believe, is admitted by men of all parties. "The 
old issues," said Mr. Giddings, in a recent speech, 
in Congress, — " between the parties, are lost sight 
of; they are in fact forgotten. Who now speaks of a 
protective tariff? Who in this Hall attempts to illus- 
trate its benefits to the free labor of the North ? Or 
who complains of its burdens upon the slave labor of 
the South ? W 7 ho now occupies time on the subject 
of harbor or river improvements ? We have no funds 
for such purposes. ... No one alludes to a Bank of 
the United States ; and no one complains of a Sub- 
Treasury ; and the division of the funds arising from 



32 



the sale of the public lands is not now spoken of. 
These issues are laid aside. The old organizations 
are, in a degree, broken up, . . . the old lines of de- 
marcation have become obscure and uncertain, and 
new political associations are gradually forming." 
Such testimony from politicians themselves, should 
not be disregarded by us. The problem now is : In 
the new combinations to be formed, what shall be the 
basis on which they shall rest r And who shall decide 
their shape and purpose ? The great question to be 
decided, probably, by the next presidential contest is 
now before the country : Shall that vast territory we 
are about to wrest from Mexico be cursed by Slavery 
or consecrated to Freedom ? Can it be, that the five 
hundred thousand professedly Christian voters of the 
nation shall tacitly and quietly leave that great ques- 
tion to be settled by trading politicians, who make 
personal aggrandizement their end, and subserviency 
to Southern dictation the essential means for its ac- 
complishment ? And shall the questions of future 
tvars and future annexations be left to the decision of 
the same reckless hands ? Already Yucatan is knock- 
ing at our doors, and there are no very obscure inti- 
mations of the annexation of Cuba, while mention is 
made of the New Republic of Sierra Madre, as making 
preparations for admission to our already almost illim- 
itable domain. Shall it be left to the same influences 
to settle these questions that decided the Annexation 
of Texas and the Mexican War ? or will the Christians 
of our churches rise, in the majesty of their might, 
absolve themselves from such base and wicked sub- 
servience, and strike for Freedom — freedom for 
themselves — freedom for the oppressed — and free- 
dom for the cause of Truth and Right. 



APPENDIX. 



" The benefits of the Constitution of the United States, were 
the restoration of credit and reputation, to the country — the re- 
vival of commerce, navigation, and ship building — the acqui- 
sition of the means of discharging the debts of the Revolution, 
and the protection and encouragement of the infant and droop- 
ing manufactures of the country. All this, however, as is now 
well ascertained, was insufficient to propitiate the rulers of the 
Southern States to the adoption of the Constitution. What 
they specially wanted was protection. Protection from the pow- 
erful and savage tribes of Indians within their borders, and who 
were harrassing them with the most terrible of wars — and pro- 
tection from their own negroes — protection from their insurrec- 
tions — protection from their escape — protection even to the 
trade by which they were brought into this country — protec- 
tion, shall I not blush to say, protection to the very bondage by 
which they were held. Yes! it cannot be denied — the slave- 
holding lords of the South prescribed, as a condition of their 
assent to the Constitution, three special provisions to secure the 
perpetuity of their dominion over their slaves. The first was 
the immunity for twenty years of preserving the African slave- 
trade; the second was the stipulation to surrender fugitive 
slaves — an engagement positively prohibited by the laws of 
God, delivered from Sinai ; and thirdly, the exaction, fatal to 
the principles of popular representation, of a representation for 
slaves — for articles of merchandise, under the name of persons. 
• * # * #-• # » 

" Its operation upon the government of the nation is, to es- 
tablish an artificial majority in the slave representation over that 
of the free people, in the American Congress, and thereby 
to make the PRESERVATION, PROPAGATION, AND 
PERPETUATION OF SLAVERY THE VITAL. AND 
5 



34 



ANIMATING SPIRIT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERN- 
MENT." * * * * * 

" In the Articles of Confederation, there was no guaranty for 
the property of the slaveholder — no double representation of 
him in the Federal councils — no power of taxation — no stipu- 
lation for the recovery of fugitive slaves. But when the pow- 
ers of government came to be delegated to the Union, the South 
— that is, South Carolina and Georgia — refused their subscrip- 
tion to the parchment, till it should be saturated with the infec- 
tion of slavery, which no fumigation could purify, no quarantine 
could extinguish. The freemen of the North gave way, and 
the deadly venom of slavery was infused into the Constitution 
of freedom. Its first consequence has been to invert the first 
principle of Democracy, that the will of the majority shall rule 
the land. By means of the double representation, the minority 
command the whole, and a KNOT OF SLAVEHOLDERS 
GIVE THE LAW AND PRESCRIBE THE POLICY 
OF THE COUNTRY." — John Quincy Adams. 



"And here I may add, that, in a free government like our 
own, this manly avowal of our adherence to right, and our op- 
position to evil, would commonly render a resort to other meas- 
ures comparatively needless. The good men among us — and 
under this term I mean to include all men of virtuous senti- 
ments, whether they profess themselves the disciples of Christ 
or not — have it perfectly in their power, by the calm and de- 
cided expression of their moral convictions, to direct the desti- 
nies of this nation. There never has existed, and there never 
can exist, either an administration or a political party, that 
would dare to trifle with the uttered sentiments of the men of 
principle in the United States. Were such an act done but 
once, there would be small temptation to repeat the insult. If 
you ask me why it is, then, that public wrongs are so frequently 
done, and the doers of them held scathless, I answer, it is be- 
cause those sentiments are not uttered. There exists among us 
a fear of avowing our moral sentiments upon political questions, 
which seems to me as servile as it is unaccountable. It envel- 
opes society like a poisoned atmosphere. It is invisible and in- 
tangible, but every virtuous sentiment that breathes it grows 
torpid, loses consciousness, gasps feebly, and dies. To this re- 



35 



suit every man contributes who withholds the expression of his 
honest indignation on every occasion of public wrong-doing. 

"But the more expression of our moral sentiments, by no 
means discharges us from the responsibility which rests upon 
us as Christian citizens. Our sentiments are worthless, not to 
say savoring of hypocrisy, unless they lead us to correspondent 
action. When we believe an act to be wrong, we have no 
more right to appoint a man to office, who, as we believe, will 
perform it, than we have to perform it ourselves. For such a 
man we cannot, with a good conscience, vote. By refusing to 
vote for such a man, we in part deliver ourselves from the guilt 
of wrong-doing. But we must go farther. We must not merely 
have no part in wrong-doing, we must see to it that wrong be 
not done. We must use all innocent constitutional means to 
secure the doing of right. We must choose men to represent 
US whom we believe to be governed by moral principle, who 
will act in the fear of God, and who will love right and justice 
and mercy better than personal aggrandizement or political 
power. By this I do not mean that we should limit our selec- 
tion to any religious sect, or to the professors of any form of be- 
lief. Far from it. All that I claim is that we shall choose men 
who will represent the moral, as well as the political sentiments 
of this nation. A virtuous man has certainly a right to demand 
that his moral feelings be not outraged by the public agent 
whom he appoints. If we sternly enforce this demand, we 
ourselves shall be innocent, and the republic will be safe." 

" To all this I know it will be answered, there are never 
more than two political parties, and though with neither can a 
good man harmonize, yet he must unite with either the one or 
the other, lest his influence be altogether thrown away. He 
must therefore become a party to much that is wrong, that thus 
he may accomplish a probable good. To this objection our re- 
ply must be brief. It declares it to be our duty to do wrong for 
the sake of attaining a purpose, or, in the words of the Apostle, 
' to do evil that good may come.' This is its simple and obvi- 
ous meaning, and we leave it to the condemnation of the Apos- 
tle. But besides all this, when we urge such a plea we seem 
to forget that there is a power in truth and rectitude, which wise 
men would be wiser, did they duly appreciate. Let the moral 
principle of this country only find an utterance, and party or- 



36 



ganizations would quail before its rebuke. How often have we 
seen a combination, insignificant in point of numbers, breaking- 
loose from the trammels of party, and uniting in the support of 
a single principle, hold tbe balance of power between contend- 
ing parties, and wield tbe destinies of either at its will. Let 
virtuous men then unite on the ground of universal moral princi- 
ple, and the tyranny of party will be crushed. Were the virtu- 
ous men of this country to carry their moral sentiments into 
practice, and act alone rather than participate in the doing of 
wrong, all parties would from necessity submit to their authori- 
ty, and the acts of the nation would become a true exponent of 
the moral character of our people. 

"And unless we do this, it is both folly and injustice to com- 
plain of the magistracy which we have set over us. We have 
no reason to expect in a legislator a higher degree of virtue than 
we possess ourselves. It is ungenerous to blame him for being 
a selfish partisan when we ourselves have set him the example. 
It is unreasonable to expect him to sacrifice office, emolument 
and influence for principle, while we dare not act from principle 
when we have none of these to lose. It is shameful to ask him 
to forsake his party for right, when we ourselves, if he obeyed 
our wishes, would be the first to abandon him. If we expect 
moral independence in our representatives, we must show them 
that we possess it ourselves. If we ask them to peril their 
political influence for right, we must at least show them that the 
moral principle of their constituents will sustain them in well- 
doing. 

" We see then, that this whole discussion tends to one very 
simple practical conclusion. A virtuous man is bound to carry 
his principles into practice in all the relations of life. He can 
no more do wrong in company than alone, and be guiltless. If 
he be a true man, he must love right and justice and mercy, 
better than political party, or personal popularity. If he fear 
God, he must obey God rather than man, and this fear must 
govern his conduct universally. In this matter every man must 
begin not with his neighbor, but himself, and if he wish our 
country to be reformed, let him begin the work immediately. 
Let us all then lay these things solemnly to heart, and may 
God grant us grace to carry them into practice." — Pres. Waif- 
land's Sermon on The Duty of Obedience to the Civil Magistrate. 



37 



«' The capitalists of the South — not the free white people, 
but the capitalists — the comparatively few owners and venders 
of slaves, who are of the aristocracy there, and who therefore 
think themselves the people — have set up a demand that not 
Texas alone, but all the regions beyond, shall be converted by 
act of Congress into a market for slaves. Thus shall the price 
of human flesh be kept up in the shambles of Norfolk and Rich- 
mond. Thus South Carolina and the seaboard of Georgia, now 
that, they begin to suffer from the exhaustion of their soil, and 
from all the impoverishment so infallibly, though slowly pro- 
duced by their semi-barbarous organization of society, shall feel 
themselves rich again for a season, in the increased price of ne- 
groes. * * * Congress must do this for them, and must do it 
by the votes of men deputed from the free labor states, and 
representing the sturdy masses of our free laboring population. 
Thus shall slaveholding states be established to maintain for 
ages to come the ascendency which the slavery power has so 
long had in all the departments of the federal government. 
And now the question is, Shall the demand thus made by 
Southern capitalists and Southern politicians be conceded? 
We must meet that question. It cannot be got rid of. * * 

" Look at the nature of the question. Look at it as a ques- 
tion of public safety. It is the question whether to the elements 
of disaffection and disturbance already existing in those pro- 
vinces — whether to a population of half tamed Indians, and 
long emancipated negroes, and conquered Spanish Creoles, on 
whom the boon of American citizenship has been in a measure 
forced, and whose revengeful spirits burn with a religious hate 
of Yankee domination, we shall attempt to add that no less 
combustible element — a population of negro slaves. It is the 
question whether upon that frontier, separated from Mexico by 
no natural barriers, we will place a population from which runa- 
way slaves will be constantly escaping to freedom upon Mexi- 
can soil — fugitives whom no treaty requires the Mexicans to 
surrender, whom the law of nature and of natural sympathies 
requires them rather to protect, and whom the masters will 
therefore pursue in array of arms, shooting them down if they 
resist, and bringing them back in chains. It is the question 
whether we will bring upon ourselves the certainty of constant 
bloodshed on that distant frontier, and of speedy and perpetual 



38 



" Look at it as a question of political economy. It is the 
question whether we shall put these new acquisitions of ours 
to such a use as shall most augment the great aggregate of our 
national wealth, and the rewards of the national industry. It is 
the question whether the population that is to spread over the 
hills and mountain plains of that vast and wild interior, and that 
will fill those sheltered nooks and narrow vales into which the 
soft west wind blows from the Pacific, shall be a pastoral and 
farming population, free, industrious, and civilized, requiring for 
their consumption, in an indefinite supply, the cotton and sugar 
of the South, the manufactured products of the North, and the 
golden harvests of the West, and paying for all they consume 
in the products of their industry; or a slave producing people, 
requiring for their consumption almost nothing of the products 
of other portions of the Union, and contributing to the internal 
commerce of the nation nothing, or almost nothing, but slaves 
born in the invigorating air of the far inland mountains, to be 
consumed by toil in torrid canefields and pestilential savannas 
around the gulf of Mexico. 

" Look at it as a question of national dignity and reputation. 
It is the question whether the arms and resources of the Ameri- 
can people have been employed, their blood poured out on 
fields of battle, and their treasure lavished, to force on conquer- 
ed and reluctant provinces, that disgraceful barbarism, that scoff 
and hissing of the civilized world, the institution of negro 
slavery. 

" Look at it as a moral question — a question of right and 
wrong in legislation. The question is not, what is expedient in 
order to our getting along for the present with an exacting and 
unscrupulous aristocracy, threatening to dissolve the Union if 
they cannot have their way? — but, what is right — how shall 
we get along under the government of God, with his eternal 
and omnipotent justice ? The question is not, what is destiny ? 
but what is right ? Right, O atheist, is greater and more awful 
than destiny. Do right, and let destiny care for itself. 

" Reader, as you are an American freeman, responsible to 
God for the trust devolved upon you, see that you do not over- 
look the importance of this question. The question is one of a 
grandeur so manifest, that in the view of any rightminded man, 
it makes all other pending questions of our national politics in- 
significant. Who shall be president — who shall be senator — 



39 



who shall be judge — questions like Ihese are of no moment, 
save in their relation to the question of the crisis. Questions 
about the tariff and the treasury may be postponed ; but this 
question stands before us in its august greatness, and it will not 
down at our bidding. It will be answered. lie who would 
sacrifice such a question to any temporary, personal, or party 
interests, wrongs his own moral nature, and betrays the great 
cause of universal humanity." — Neio Englander for April. 

To these extracts we would add the following fact and in- 
quiries : — 

At a recent Convention of one of the leading parties in this 
State, for the choice of a delegate to the National Convention 
for the selection of a presidential candidate, there were present 
but about a third of the number that had a right to be present. 
The successful candidate received but one vote more than a 
majority, and two votes more than the number of delegates that 
were present from the two cities in the district, himself being a 
member of one of those cities. And, judging from the usual 
custom in the choice of that one third, in the town caucuses, not 
more than one tenth — probably much less — of the regular 
voters of the party were present If now, when the South is 
straining every nerve to secure a candidate that shall be true to 
its interests, that Delegate should prove subservient to its infa- 
mous schemes and those of the trading politicians of the North, 
can the Christian voters of that district be regarded as guilt- 
less in the matter? Have they, in any true sense of the term, 
met the crisis now upon us? And on the day of election can 
they consistently urge it to be a duty to vote for their party 
candidate, " as the least of two evils," when they have put 
forth no effort to prevent the selection of such a candidate ? 



The way the South controls the Country. — The fol- 
lowing is cut from a recent number of a Richmond paper, a 
leading journal of one of the great National Parties : 

" The pledge given by the Virginia Convention, to support the nominee 
of the National Convention, is, as all such pledges have been heretofore 
considered, predicated upon the very reasonable assumption, that the indi- 
viduals who may be nominated, will not be hostile to the rights of 
the Sooth." 

On the above, a Pennsylvania paper makes the following 
judicious remarks: 



40 



"The Democrats of the South have used precisely the same language. 

" This, then, is the position of both parties at the South : they will sup- 
port the nominees of their National Conventions, only upon condition that 
they are thorough pro-slavery men. 

" The parties at the North impose no such conditions — they impose no 
conditions whatever. They say they will support any man who is nomi- 
nated. If he should he hostile to northern rights, it makes no odds to them. 

" Herein lies the difference between the two sections. The South will 
not support any one hostile to its interests ; the North will. The South 
sacrifices party to principle ; the North sacrifices principle to party. The 
South inquires, Is he true to Slavery ? — the North inquires, Is he true to 
our party? Hence, the South is always the workman, and the North the 
tool. Hence, the South is ever victorious, and the North abased." 

The People's League. — By recent arrivals from Europe, 
we are apprised of the formation, in England, of the " People's 
League," headed by such men as Mr. Hume, Mr. Cobden, Mr. 
Bright, and Lord Stuart, &c, &c. Its leading objects and pros- 
pects of success are thus set forth by the London Times : 

" For these reasons there appears to us nothing ill-timed, but rather the 
contrary, in the new move just made by what we may call, without offence, 
the Radical party. Fifty members of the Lower House, usually distinguished 
by their extreme views, have come forward to solicit ' a more cordial under- 
standing and co-operation among such members of Parliament as are favor- 
able to the extension of the suffrage, an equitable arrangement of taxation, a 
reduction of expenditure, and the general advance of reform principles 
throughout England and Ireland.' A meeting has been held, the above ob- 
jects have been adopted in the form of a resolution, and a chairman, deputy- 
chairman, and secretary appointed. Here, then, is a nucleus and ground- 
work of a permanent organization, while the names are a sufficient pledge 
that definite objects will be proposed and prosecuted with vigor and perse- 
verance. Self-preservation and political existence dictated such a step. 
Without organization or policy, the Reformers in Parliament were dwind- 
ling down to a merely obstructive faction. Week after week they only 
appeared as a miserable minority, protesting against a vote or tax, or an in- 
crease of power in the Executive, as if they had nothing better to recom- 
mend than that nothing should be done. No party, however, can subsist on 
negatives. Nature abhors a vacuum, and when people find their leaders do 
not know what to be at, they will quickly fall off to those who are more 
prepared for action." 

Would not something tantamount to this be well calculated 
for ns, in the present exigencies of our country, where the people 
have vastly more power and greater responsibilities ? A move- 
ment has already been made in one of the western cities, which 
promises great good, if it can be extensively and vigorously fol- 
lowed up ; enlarged somewhat, perhaps, in its scope and pur- 
pose. It is a simple Pledge ; the signers of which agree to 
vote for no man, for President or Vice President, who will not 
avow himself opposed to the farther extension of slavery. 



W46 






■ V . » ^[ 






&*** 



>.m 






"oK 




• • ,V 



» ^ 



H 






:^\VW 





tf$S\ 



SB ". "o v* 










►* *< 







r *o' 







*bV 



BOOKBINO»\C 






